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Oh not from the beasts of the plains, nor of the dwindling woodlands.

The night before we reached the checkpoint, they came at us. Not screams and sickles and pitchforks, but sneaking around in leathers made gray by fireplace ashes. If they’d had any skill with their bows and crossbows, our guards wouldn’t have even gotten off a shout.

I clambered to my feet, still wiping the sleep from one eye. I had a shield, but there was little enough time; I pulled Heart’s Protector from inventory.

They had knives and sickles, and not a pitchfork among them. They smelled of starvation and desperation, one of jaundice. What followed was a slaughter, just not the slaughter they had been planning on.

“You! Big Nose!” one of the guards shouted at me.

“Yes?” I asked.

“You can track by scent, yes?”

I didn’t like where this was heading, but I am a Truthspeaker. “I can, yes.”

.....

“Good. Good. Track out which farms these traitors came from, so we can burn them out.”

“I don’t think we should do that.” I said, applying a bandage to a fallen soldier. “We-”

“He is in charge, and he does the thinking.” said Pliates, the other guard.

“What he said.” said the senior guard.

At dawn we traveled east, three columns of smoke on the horizon behind us. My lone consolation was that the parents had hidden their children on other farms. Of course, the soldiers were in a poor mood, there having been nothing at the farms worth looting.

That was actually of concern to me; for all the talk of ‘dirty farm filth’ that civilized humans tended toward, it was the farms that provided food. If the farms were hungry, poor to the point of revolt, how long would it be until the cities were also ready to take up arms against the empire?

How had it come to this?

It didn’t benefit anyone, not even Hortiluk. It certainly didn’t benefit the humans themselves; they’d be nearly wiped out if it came to a military revolution. If I knew Rakkal, the survivors would be crushed so far that they’d never be able to revolt again.

It was, perhaps, something I should talk to Guur about. Fortunately, I passed through Narrow Valley before things got to that point.

Guur was less concerned about that than every single detail I could remember of the Battle of the Broken Ring. Oh, he repeated my concerns back to me, but his heart was still that of a warrior.

What else was I to do? Of course, I could have defied my orders, ignored the assignment given to me by the emperor himself, and begun looking into the economic problems of the empire.

And, damn me, I wanted to.

I had no class, no ability, and barely anything resembling Intellect/Math/Finance/Auditing. But the desire was there. Some one, or more likely some organization, was working toward the downfall of humans within the empire.

It was like the Ricelands gambit; something I couldn’t see, because I wasn’t looking at the issues from the proper perspective.

“Have you considered staying for a few days?” Guur suddenly asked me.

“What?” I asked. “That seems... lazy.”

“Trust someone who has learned how to detect the injuries of others.” he said, in a soothing voice. “You need time, and in your case, enough food for a small squadron. A few days here at the capital, and your odds of surviving your mission to Miletus’ Harbor increase.”

“How did you know I was going there?”

“Brother wouldn’t have sent you on a mission here. With Hortiluk missing, there’s hardly any reason to visit his city. Where else would he have sent you?”

“He might have me checking on the Graveyard of Hattan.”

“Ah. But unlikely, since that is the favor I plan to ask of you. There are rumors that the God Hand have broken the fence that keeps the undead inside, and I need someone capable of dealing with them to go with the construction team.”

“But a squad from... oh.” I said. “The government owes them money.”

“Quite a large sum, as it turns out.” Guur agreed. “So you see, that is not an option. The Uruk soldiery are brave enough, but they ask for magical weapons if they are to fight the undead.”

“We have a shrine to the sun right here, in Narrow Valley.”

He chuckled. “And what do you think they have to say about aiding what they see as an Uruk cause, in Uruk lands?”

I muttered something not worthy of print.

“Exactly. But they were... more creative in their use of anatomy.”

I sighed. “How long will it take to get that team together?”

“The key point is getting you back to good health. What do you need?”

It was a week before I was back up to half health, and rolling out in a cart with four workfolk, Benji the Smith, and Helados, a drover outcast from the Guild. Yes, that very same Helados. With the very same mannerisms.

“Helados,” I told him, “you will get one attempt at whatever you’re implying. The morning after you try it, we’ll bury your body.”

It was, perhaps, the wrong foot to start off on. He would be sour and insubordinate the rest of his time with us.

He did, that same night, offer his services to the work woman Anisa. She offered to handle his manhood, with a hammer, and asked Benji for the lease of his anvil for the task.

Five. Days. For five entire days, I put up with his veiled threats, his sideways insults, his sulking manner.

“You know,” he said, “We could just camp about here, and just report that the fence is intact.”

“If you are too much a coward, feel free to get off here. But the food and supplies stay with the cart.”

“A-ight.” he said, pulling the oxen to a halt and setting the hand brake on the cart. “Let’s get this straight. This cart doesn’t move without me. On this mission, I am the king.”

He stood. “I AM THE KING!”

I don’t think I even considered my actions. One instant, I was on the ground. The next, I had leapt upon the cart, one hand extended where Helados’ chest had been, palm out from the shove.

From the ground, he looked up at me. “You’ll not get those animals moving without me!”

I was not gentle in unlocking the brake. Helados was right. What did I know about animals, about driving a cart? I made a noise, a click-click in the throat, like he had.

The oxen began walking forward.

“Luck!” he screamed. “You’ll never manage the cart! Not without me!”

I tried to last an entire hour, but after a mere thirty four minutes, I yielded the reins to him just to shut him up. “Next time I have to take control of the cart from you, I will kill you.”

He had no reply to that, and later that day, we arrived at the massive enchanted fence that surrounds Hattan.

“I see nothing with my Mystic Vision to indicate the wards are broken. Let us start at the near corner, and circle the fence.” I said.

The general rule is that the longer a ward has held, the stronger it becomes. Or rather, the more resistant to change. The Graveyard of Hattan was older than... well, at least the end of the Age of Dragons. I’ve heard estimates of eight hundred years, although from the wards, it seems older.

On the third day, having verified that there were all of three rusty spots, and one area where we buried three bodies of idiots who had been trying to tap the ward for power, we said our good byes, and I turned south by south-east.

I gave Manahuru the okay to leave Helados with a non-contagious intestinal gift.

As ferocious as they are, as relentless as hunters, the plains cats left me alone for that week. It was as though something had changed, and they no longer considered me as prey.

They certainly didn’t consider me a fellow predator; I consumed roughly my weight in foliage each day, and left behind... well, let’s just say that when you fill six stomachs, there’s a lot of waste material.

Oh, and Sobek was livid. He’d been looking forward to my quests of wartime vengeance.

“What about the journey? People and folk are not always courteous to travelers.”

“Show me your planned route.” he said. And then, “Very well. Stop by your birthing pool and the goblins of the fay-wood. Correct anything you see there that looks wrong to you. And THEN I will consider us even.”

A cold feeling crept into my spine. “And the agent of the Raven?”

“She and her feathers are about, although it will take her time to realize you are headed to the Mines of Othello. You may just escape her notice.”

“You mean the Maze of Othello?” I asked.

“Do I?” Sobek asked. “I suppose time will show us.”

I sighed, but in retrospect, I should have listened.